Ethics in Photojournalism Profession
Aaron Quinn, “Accepting Manipulation or Manipulating What’s Acceptable?”
- The moral issue
Quinn (2008) presents two moral issues in the photojournalism profession. The first issue concerns post-shoot manipulation and the ethical problems arising from it such as lack of consistency, loss of integrity, and overlooking the photojournalistic duty of telling the truth. The second issue is with regard to empowering a machine to make judgment rather than a human being in certain situations, which raises similar concerns with truth-telling, consistency, and integrity. Accordingly, two ethical questions are presented. First, what are the proper ethical guidelines for post-shoot photo manipulations? Second, how much should we rely on intra camera exposure calculations instead of post-shoot manipulations?
- The possible answers to the issue as stated
The journalism professionals should be guided by the three major ethical theories: deontology, consequentialism, and virtue theory. News photographers have an obligation to make choices before lifting the camera to their eyes. Such choices are with regard to the composition of the photo, among other considerations. Every choice made in such circumstances is a form of manipulation. Manipulation concerns neutrality, which constitutes skilful use of a device or the hands. It can involve routine color correction, which is acceptable. Nevertheless, manipulation may also constitute a deceptive aspect for purposes of institutional or personal gain. This pejorative form of manipulation alters reality for purposes of news aesthetics or sensationalism.
- Considerations brought to bear on the issue’s possible answers, and judgments about the answers following from these considerations
Theoretically, journalists are charged with the responsibility of enhancing the public good through the provision of accurate information which people can apply while making choices concerning public life. This responsibility arises from the three major ethical doctrines: virtue theory, deontology, and consequentialism. Through these theories, news audiences and photojournalists are able to have a better understanding of issues associated with photo manipulation and its effects on people’s ability to make decisions. From a utilitarianism perspective, lack of accuracy and truth eliminates moral grounding and credibility, which damages the public’s ability to trust the information received from a news source.
From a virtue-based perspective, carefully chosen virtues such as integrity, truth-telling and accuracy are essential guidelines for the public and journalism professionals. These virtues provide helpful to news editors and reporters in making their decisions. Such virtues are important especially in situations concerning agent-relative roles and actions rather than the utilitarianism ‘s agent-neutral status. The deontological theory demonstrates that the duties of journalists to be accurate and tell the truth are grounded under moral law, which requires journalists to act rationally, irrespective of the possible or actual consequences of such actions.
It is significant to consider the manipulations which occur in new shoot, and more importantly the manipulations take place after the images have been shot. Post-shoot manipulation is the most frequently exploited element of photo manipulation due to its ability to present most technical challenges as well as most moral problems. Post-shoot manipulation constitutes digital ‘touch-ups’ which may be unethical or ethical depending on whether the manipulations are misleading, untruthful, or deceptive.
Technological developments have increased the degrees of both negative and positive manipulations due to the fact that high-tech tools make manipulation faster. Unethical manipulations began over a century ago with darkroom photography. Quinn recommends further exploration due to the fact that the public trust in media is increasingly declining, partly as a result of poor photojournalistic practice.
Making determinations on ethical and unethical professional practice requires sound moral reasoning. In the journalism profession, professional ethics rules and codes have been formulated, though the manner in which they are conveyed and enforced is wanting. In order to establish an ideal environment in news photography, it is important to develop professional standards and enforce them.
Generally, there are journalistic virtues whose qualities relate to conventional epistemological virtues, and they play an important role in guiding morally defensible conduct. Quinn highlights Mann’s journalistic virtues which include news judgement, accuracy, credibility, and fairness. Though these virtues often overlap with each other, it is important for journalists to understand that they possess the ability to reason, and the reasoning allows them to be virtuous by balancing the virtues in complicated situations.
There is a philosophical way in which these virtues should be applied to journalism. The virtue of fairness correlates with the conventional virtue of justice, which requires manipulations to fairly and equally reflect the representation of information, opinion, among other aspects. Credibility correlates with integrity. Lack of impartiality in newsgathering process renders the news ambiguous, tainted, or useless. Accuracy corresponds to truth-telling; these virtues restrain photojournalists from recreating reality. News judgment is a very critical virtue which requires an individual’s own interpretation, and it corresponds to the traditional virtue of prudence. Prudence requires photojournalists to make tough choices in difficult situations.
Another consideration is the photojournalistic problems which lead to most ethical issues with regard to digital manipulation. They include: dodge-and-burn, cropping, and color balancing techniques. These techniques can cause ethical problems where the process destroys an image’s truth-telling faculty, facilitates injustice, reduces integrity, and/or damages credibility.
With regard to color balancing, photographers are often tempted to apply aesthetic enhancements which go beyond acceptable modifications used for r-creating reality, resulting in the violation of integrity and accuracy. This ultimately results in loss of credibility. Owing to the fact that modern intra-camera devices are very accurate, it would be acceptable for photojournalists to let the cameras make the judgment, as well as restrain from making further color manipulation. An exception to this proposal is the Nikon D1 camera which has a yellow scum, and it is acceptable for the journalist to remove the yellow scum. Another exception is where say a head of state dies following the capture of a flawed image. It is acceptable to properly balance the color so as to convey the subject illness appropriately due to the fact that the value of the news outweighs other ethical considerations.
Cropping can also lead to lose of important visual data if not carefully executed. While maximizing the value of the news, it is important for photojournalists to that there are few ethical risks. Photographers are empowered to use their judgment while composing newsworthy photograph. With regard to the dodge-and-burn technique, many professionals and academics claim that journalists must always tell the truth. This technique is thus considered deceptive, and unethical. Most journalists often alter photographs for aesthetics, understanding, and/or re-creating reality. The conscious appreciation of potential inaccuracy qualifies as intent in terms of a predetermined risk, since the false information could have been prevented from reaching the public.
- Conclusion
Photojournalism can apply the three major ethical theories in determining right ethical actions which are: the virtue theory, the consequential theory and deontology. This is a pluralistic approach which is useful in dealing with multifaceted issues resulting from the growing technological developments in media.
- Summary of the main reasoning
The development in technology has led to increase in photojournalism manipulation. Consequently, questionable manipulation practices have been normalized since manipulation has become easier and more pervasive. However, regardless of technological advancements, deontology, virtue, and consequentialism are capable of weeding out ethical problems. From a deontological perspective, imaging decisions must be guided by truth. From virtue theory perspective, justice, integrity, truth, and prudence remain the basis for good professional decisions. Consequentialism focuses on serving the best interests of the public, regardless of the tools used in the newsgathering process.
Reference
Quinn, A. (2008). Accepting Manipulation or Manipulating What’s Acceptable? From, Allhoff, F. & Anand, J. V. Eds, Professions in Ethical Focus: An Anthology. Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press.
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